So, right now the time is:
I’m not sure how long this post will end up being as I’ve just spent a solid hour or so continuing a different blog post about my hair transplant lol.
But I felt motivated to write this up quickly because it outlines why exactly I do what I do.
So I mentioned to Jude (one of my outbound sales guys) that I now have this in my calendar each morning:
Soon enough btw, I hope to be rid of this calendar reminder – but it’ll be important over the next month perhaps until it gets locked into muscle memory.
Then, just like waking up at 430am – I’ll no longer need to write/post/think about it – because it’ll go into the realms of muscle memory.
So one of my New Year’s resolutions is to stick to this process outlined above (so far this morning I’ve written a blog already – 1.8k words, listened to 34 minutes of Audible at 2.2x speed which would make it 74.8 minutes of actual content) each morning.
And not only that – but in this period also NOT look at my inbox or go onto Whatsapp until 1030am onwards.
This gives me literally 6 hours every morning to focus on business development.
Or as Jude mentioned – have time allocated to ‘me tasks’.
I wanted to expand upon how powerful such routines are, and why they can be the biggest driving force behind your business and overall success and development.
Table of Contents
Content Production = More Sales, Inspired Team Members, Impressed Partners
When you run a company of <50 people, and even more tbh I think these days – the way you can impact most of the people you work with – is through two things (beyond the usual decision making that comes with running a business).
Education and inspiration to those within your company and network.
I’ve (as you can see) chosen to work on producing regular content for one year now – and it’s raised the calibre of companies that do business with us, potential partners who approach us, and deals that we have won. This is a Fact.
Recently my sales team has twice said ‘ah Deepak they asked about how your hair transplant is going – apparently they found it somewhere online’.
Historically (basically last year since I made a real content push) my head of business says ‘Deepak they love all the content you put out’ – and so it seems that when people are making a B2B buying decision – naturally (as I would) they run due diligence on the founder as well as the operating team.
Put simply, the drive for content, and its production helps educate and motivate my team and is something that decision-makers look at when deciding which company they want to spend their marketing dollars with.
Does Pearl Lemon, and their team practice what they preach?
Building The Team’s Brands
One of the things I’m reading about (again) from “Fanatical Prospecting” is the power of familiarity when it comes to closing deals, alongside brand recognition giving you a distinct competitive advantage when competing against companies selling similar services.
As an SEO agency, for a company looking to hire a company like ours – it’s difficult outside in to differentiate the best teams.
Consequently – we’ve now launched an outreach process to help build the brands of key members within our company.
As you can see – our Heads of PR, Sales, and HR are all involved in podcast outreach as set up by our lead-generation team – and ALL will be appearing on podcasts this month
If you were to google our head of business’s name – you’ll also find this:
Further demonstrating brand expertise and demonstrating he’s an expert in the niche of sales and marketing
(Also just noticed I need to modify one of our page titles).
This will all have a long-term positive impact upon our companies
YouTube Content
So it’s not news to most people (if you know me) that YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world after Google.
We produce 1-5 leads per day on Google a lot of the time.
But we’re not producing SH*T on YouTube.
That’s a travesty, right?
I could literally transform any business I get into if I’m able to build a significant brand around the content I put out.
This is how Pearl Lemon could double its revenue within one year as well as the long term.
It just makes sense.
So as of the New Year here’s the frequency of uploads:
It’s the 5th of Jan and as you can see there are 13 videos that have been recorded by myself (on a whole range of topics yes).
I’m not stopping until that 13 number has turned into the 500 mark – with a minimum of 10 videos being recorded per week.
As a consequence of ‘getting into recording videos’ the desire to improve my process and all has also increased.
I’ve instructed Lydia, our head of internal growth, to start spending $5 per day on Facebook ads to grow the YouTube channel.
I have a YouTube SEO guy scheduling videos and optimizing tags and titles.
I’m also going to build a promotional framework that will involve pushing this content onto Facebook, LinkedIn, and the like soon enough.
(This has all come from having these morning hours to work on this)
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The Flow Of Ideas
One of the most exciting things that I enjoy about my mornings – is the ideas that all of the content I consume gives me.
Just this morning I’ve:
- Listened to parts of ‘Fanatical Prospecting’
- Listened to parts of ‘How To Focus’
- Read a blog from Matthew Woodward
These are the ‘actions’ generated since getting brainwaves from listening/reading (and I’ve not finished yet) all of the above:
This is from my work email (once I log onto my laptop to do stuff I’ll send out emails from here) – Right Inbox allows me to send emails without seeing my inbox – such a brilliant tool:
This is from my personal email:
There’s a total of 22 emails that have been sent this morning from being inspired by all of the new content I’m taking in (and I’m not done yet)
I want to take a moment to demonstrate what kinds of emails are being sent out:
How The Ideas Generate Massive Action
I’ve emailed my incoming Head of Content (Noah) to start prepping his own skillset to lead the various content writers we work with alongside nailing the 70,000 words I set for him as a final target this month:
I’ve asked my Head of Design (Kaushal) several things:
To get all of our various pieces of content out and scheduled:
To redirect redundant service pages from my personal blog site:
The same for blog content:
Thanked my buddy Max Newton for this amazing book recommendation:
Asked my Head of Internal Growth (Lydia) to fix inconsistencies with my social media image presence:
Asked my Head Of Outbound Sales (Jude) and Co-Founder at Plant Sumo (Wadah) to make adjustments to their social media profiles as well…
…………..
…..
…
The list goes on.
Working On Your Business Not In Your Business
This perhaps brings me to the primary point of this ‘golden space’ I have each morning to myself without any outside distractions until I hit 1030am and ‘switch it on’.
The personal development activities I do – I make every effort to ensure these activities are shared with my team or documented in some way.
Whether that’s through blogs like this, the YouTube videos I have yet to record for today, or firing off 22 emails by 8.26 am before ‘office hours’ officially start.
It is this commitment to ensuring I have time whilst the whole world is sleeping that I can give myself a competitive advantage against other business owners out there.
My work is sloppy, the work is messy, and it has many many holes – but the level of activity (through consistency) stands 10x higher than most others because I ensure this time will remain sacrosanct.
Why Just Doing It Makes You Compete
This is also the hidden beauty of these mornings.
In 2020, I was in the space of solely ‘building the 430am habit’ It was challenging, difficult, and took much from me.
Now in 2021, the habit is entrenched, I no longer find it challenging and it is accepted by Strawberry and everyone around me – that 430am just makes me happier.
And NOW, with those goals outlined above – well…
Today I’ve written 3.2k words so far across my Hair Transplant blog and this one. I’ve listened to 34 minutes instead of 30 minutes of audio – and you saw how many emails went out – that’s not even part of the game plan. And yesterday I recorded 3 videos rather than 2.
So the tendency/innate desire is to try and do some more again tomorrow. And so that should make 2021 a bumper year.
Why I’m Writing About It
Because I want to entrench this habit, make it as routine as 430am, so there comes a point that I forget I even do this every morning and it becomes part of an unstoppable routine that I can build my fortunes around.
I’ve written maybe 80 blogs last year. This year writing 120+ would be excellent – but cognitively that overwhelms me.
I actually just want to focus on being massively consistent.
And all records will get broken without me even realizing it.
If you get to benefit from it by participating in my journey of growth – fantastic – that’s a bonus
But I’m writing to ascend in my life.
Why aren’t you?
